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Lumps in dogs ear fur?

My mum and her 9 months old female cavvie have come to visit and we've just noticed that Maddie have lumps/growths of some sort on both ears (on the fur, near the head) in different places and they are different sizes. We thought they were knots but they feel quite fleshy?

We don't know what to do, are they normal? Should we take her to the vets? My mum brushes her ears on a regular basis and has never noticed these before.

That does sound like ticks - it's a very bad year for them, many dogs are picking them up.

You should be able to get something called a tick hook from your vet - it looks a bit like a crochet hook. You insert it between the tick's head and the skin and rotate anti clockwise to remove the tick.

Alternatively/additionally your vet will be able to recommend parasite treatment.

Ticks are your most likely culprit. Another thing they could be are histiocytomas, a benign growth that is quite common in young dogs, they usually resolve on their own over the course of weeks to months.

With the comments about ticks and as we are going up to stay in the same cottage as last year and next year up by Lake Bassenthwaite for a week from next Saturday, I have just treated all the girls with Advantix instead of their normal Frontline as Advantix is sold as being a tick repellent as well as killing any that attach ,plus I have slightly increased their dose of garlic which again is supposed to be a repellent but after each meal they do pong a bit and Dawn keeps on saying "whats that smell " and my answer of course is "what smell I cant smell anything ".

They weren't ticks, they were just knots of hair, we managed to untangle one but the other is impossible, my mum's taking her to get groomed when they get home. She's got another one now, I wonder if it's just because her hair is so curly?

My dogs hair isn't very curly and he hasn't got any.

She gets groomed on a daily basis, any tips on how else to keep these away?

It's a daily job with some dogs -- blenheims I find often get the worst mats. A regular brush doesn't get them out -- you need to gently work them out with a wire slicker brush. It can help to work a little cornflour into the mat, or spritz with a little spray on coat conditioner. They can get mats from food getting on their ear hair (a snood helps) or from scratching at them. The reason your mum probably wasn't noting them before is the pup would not have had much hair on her ears, I think? She is just at the age where they begin to grow out. They can get especially bad mats just behind the ears at the base as well. Often if they get tightly matted the mats just have to be carefully clipped out. You can also snip them in half lengthwise (carefully!!) and then it is easier to unsnarl them.